Discover more about the constellations of stars and see if you can discover your own!
Salt dough is easy to make and can be used to make all sorts of models - including starfish. This activity will show you how.
Fossil Jurassic star fish from the Sedgwick Museum
Find out how the multi-coloured northern lights are created then have a go at creating your own.
If we look closely, rocks tell us the story of their formation. So, grab your notebook and set out on a mini field trip to find out more about how the formation of a rock reflects its physical properties, and what properties architects look for in a building stone.
We offer facilitated workshops and self-led visits. There is no charge for our school sessions, but we welcome donations to support the Museum learning programme (recommended donation of £2 per child). Get in touch with the Museum Education Coordinator to discus your visit museumeducation@esc.cam.ac.uk
It might not look very exciting but flint gravel has a story to tell of a warm chalky sea that covered a lot of England about 90 million years ago. That’s when dinosaur were around although they were not living in this particular sea. Sometimes flint filles the holes made by borrowing animals and sometimes, if we’re lucky it enclosed the remains of sea creatures meaning it is great place to look for fossils.
About the Session
This set of activities covers and expands on the Year 5 national curriculum unit "Earth and Space", using objects from the Whipple Museum to explore:
The solar system
Terrestrial, celestial and planetary globes
The earth's movement around the sun
Space science today
Duration: Can be booked as:
A 90-minute session in the museum - you can find an example timetable for a museum session here
It is really unusual for a palaeontologist (scientist who study fossils) to find a complete skeleton with all the bones in the right place. We are more likely to find only a few bones or a jumbled up skeleton.
Putting a skeleton back to together when you know what the animal looks like can be a challenge, but imagine how hard that becomes when there are no more of those creatures alive for you look at. It is a bit like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together when you don’t have the photo on the box as a guide.
How does burning fossil fuels threaten Antarctic marine life?
This experiment demonstrates the link between increasing carbon dioxide levels and ocean acidification and freshening oceans. Freshwater and more acidic water in the oceans make life harder for Antarctica’s marine animals.
The experiment and video were made by Nick Barrett. Nick is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge Earth Science Department and The British Antarctic Survey investigating the resistance of Antarctic marine species to predicted freshening and lower salinity in the Southern Ocean.
Meet the Deep Earth Research Team and find out why and how they study the Deep Earth, and what the team are currently working on.
Visit the Deep Earth Explorers online exhibition to find out more about their exciting research to find answers to the many open mysteries we still don't understand about our planet. The exhibition includes interactive models of the layers of the Earth.
